Country-Rock Group Delta Rae on the Travels and Tales Behind 'Chasing Twisters,' Their New EP

The open road has been a bottomless source of inspiration for countless songwriters, but few bands tap into its mystery and magnitude quite like the rocking country crooners of Delta Rae. Though they originally hail from the South—North Carolina, to be exact—the members of Delta Rae have lapped the country on countless tours since the release of 2011's Carry the Fire. It's these treks through wild plains and desolate deserts that have inspired their hotly anticipated EP, Chasing Twisters. You can hear it in the twang of their soaring voices, the cowboy-esque whistles, and the straightforward country sound; but it's their lyrics—and their ability to weave the imagery of their travels into each verse—that sets them apart.

Most Popular

This penchant for enchantment attracted the attention of Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac, who lent his guitar-picking talents to their epic ballad of a single, "If I Loved You," and it's what brought Brittany Hölljes, Ian Hölljes, Eric Hölljes, Elizabeth Hopkins, Mike McKee and Grant Emerson out of North Carolina and into the national spotlight. Hölljes and Hopkins, Delta Rae's gorgeous sirens, took a break while in the studio to walk us through the process behind Chasing Twisters, and revealed a bit about the roots of these epic ballads.

Photo: Brittany Hölljes; Getty Images

I read somewhere that your band name is actually a name rooted in both mythology and family. Brittany, Delta Rae is the heroine in a story your mother wrote. Would either of you say that storytelling and a familial connection are key components in the makeup of your band?

Brittany Hölljes: Absolutely. Delta Rae is a girl from the South who summons the Greek gods down to earth to save her family, and she goes on a huge adventure. I think that this is the only band that I could really sustain the love and the sacrifice that it requires to make music your life. The storytelling aspect of it, I think in some ways, it's a lost art in modern music or pop music, and I think part of what we want is to bring it back and make it central again.

Elizabeth Hopkins: I think we're definitely a Southern band, and a big part of our music is storytelling. It's really hard to put our music into a genre, but the one thing that's consistent through all the songs is that we tell stories. All of us love to read as well, so I think that this idea that we could create new stories and create magic for people our age is what we want to do with our music. "Chasing Twisters" is based on Pecos Bill, who is a cowboy that lassos tornadoes, so we believe in magic. We believe in folklore. That's a huge part of being from the South, I think, and that's very intertwined in our band and the way that we sound in the songs that we make.

You've been touring relentlessly since 'Carry the Fire' dropped. Has your life on the road directly affected the output of 'Chasing Twisters?'

Hölljes: Chasing Twisters was born out of our drives across the country and Ian feeling like he wanted a song every time we passed through the Southwest. That's where it came from, that galloping drumbeat: "This is what I want to hear because this is what I feel like when I'm racing through the salt flats of Utah, or when we're passing by these incredible rock formations in New Mexico." The words and the lyrics are really influenced by the fact that being an artist is about trying to capture something too big to be captured, but you have to try anyway. That's the idea of Chasing Twisters—trying to catch something untetherable.

Hopkins: I remember we were all looking out the window in awe at how beautiful the rural Southwest is. Ian said something like, "I want to write a song that makes me feel like I'm out here." We all feel that way. When we perform "Chasing Twisters," we're all riding on horsebacks together through the desert. You write what you know and experience. As much as we have a connection to folklore and storytelling, it's always directly connected to what we've recently experienced or what we're going to.

What was it like to work with Lindsey Buckingham?

Hopkins: It was truly incredible, and honestly a huge coincidence! We arrived at Rob [Cavallo]'s studio at his home, and he walked in and told us that he had Lindsey Buckingham over for dinner, and that he listened to the demo of "If I Loved You," and that Lindsey just grabbed a guitar off the wall and started noodling around. [Buckingham] had no idea who we were, had never heard of us at all, had no idea that we've covered their song, things like that. He just started playing a part that he heard in his head, and Rob said, "That sounds really good—would you mind if we recorded that?" and he said, "Oh yeah, no problem!" The idea that he was even sitting there listening to our song was enough, and then Rob threw in that he decided to play a 12-string guitar on our track.

What's something about your live show that would surprise a fan who's never seen you before?

Hölljes: How authentic the sounds are—I hope that takes people off-guard. We see people at festivals and concerts who make incredible music, and it just so happens that a lot of it is through a computer, or with a backing track, stuff like that. Those people are artists just the same, but I think there's a lost art in just accepting the sound that six people can make on a stage, and trying to make that as big as possible. And I think Delta Rae absolutely does that. What I think a lot of people don't get through the record or videos is that we put out megawatt energy. No one's going through the motions at our show. Every time, we want to give everything we have. I think people can expect our voices to get blown out and the drums to break. We're going to do what we do every night. There's no holding back. That part makes it alive every time.